


Danse Macabre: Adventures of Mr Mulder and Dr Scully

by PostApocolypticAlien



Category: The X-Files
Genre: 19th Century, Brief mention of self-harm, Gen, basically the show but if it was rated higher and set in victorian times, domestic abuse, if im honest, im talking like mentions of child abuse, its not a happy fic, this is dark yo, we got the whole package
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27125921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostApocolypticAlien/pseuds/PostApocolypticAlien
Summary: Mulder investigates the murder of Derek Barney who's death may not be as straight-forward as people would have him believe.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	1. The Ghosts Come Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Proceed this fic carefully. Back buttons exist. If you don't like it, just exit out of it. I don't need to be told of your dislike of it. This is a WIP. Kudos and comments are appreciated! If you have any questions you can find me on Tumblr as skumflowerskullz.

“I know what I saw…I know what I saw…”

The heavy cell door opens, a floor of light shines in. The speaking man blocks the light with his hand, wincing as the brightness still continues to invade. A room alone, in the dark. This is the first time he’s seen people in a while.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The sound of a pen scratches against paper.

“My name is Duane Barry,” says the speaker. He is different to how he was first presented. Calm, collected, distant as he introduces himself.

“I was born 13th October 1828 and incarcerated on…” the man pauses as if trying to remember the exact date. He gives up.

“Incarcerated 1958 for…for…”

His breath shakes, the calm, cool nature falling away as his face contorts into anguish.

“for…” But the words will not come.

The pen stops scribbling, the scriber looking up to wait patiently. Mulder shifts as the man whines. He knows he won’t get anything out of him.

“What did you see, Duane?” Mulder asks, recalling the words Duane spoke in the cell.

The question makes something snap within Duane. The whining stops, his head shoots up, eyes wide and steely.

“I didn’t kill him.”

Beside Mulder, Skinner shifts and sighs, hearing this proclamation before.

“Okay,” says Mulder. “You didn’t kill him. So what happened?”

Duane eyes Mulder and Skinner cautiously. Hesitant to tell the truth. Something Mulder knows.

With practiced expertise Mulder says, “I want to help you.”

Duane’s eyes move quickly to Skinner. Without missing a beat asks, “What about him?”

“He wants to help you, too.”

With his stare back on Mulder, Duane looks him up and down. A small smile appearing across his lips.

“He’s a cop. You’re not.” He’s proud of himself for that one.

Mulder nods.

“That’s true,” he says. “I’m a psychologist.”

Duane does not know what that is, his look of confusion.

Self-conscious. The colloquial term for his profession is not one Mulder likes to use much. It makes him, and not the mention the patients, feel strange, different, otherworldly.

“An alienist.”

But it’s a word that is most known by most. So Duane nods, now understanding, and leans towards.

“I’ll talk,” he says, his gaze stuck on Mulder. “But only to you.”

Mulder turns to Skinner, his eyes telling him the man is free to go. Being afraid is beyond Mulder, he’s dealt with worse, more violent than the likes of Duane Barry.

And Skinner knows this and so the other man nods, standing up from his chair to leave. Duane’s eyes move over to the scribe. A woman who’s fear shows in her eyes even if she tries to hide it.

“She has to stay,” says Mulder.

Duane sits back, saying nothing.

“What happened, Duane?” he asks.

The scribe get herself set to begin writing again. Shallows, focuses upon her task and not the stare Duane continues to give her.

Duane rubs a hand over his face, his iron shackles clanging together.

“They took us,” he begins and the pen resumes scratching against the paper once more. “We were in the garden and they took us.” His eyes harden once more as he looks at Mulder. “I didn’t kill him!” he almost shouts.

There’s the sound of muttering from outside the room. Mulder turns to the window to where the man in charge of the asylum converses with Skinner. Mulder knows what this means: he’s running out of time.

“Who took you, Duane?” he begins to press but Duane’s demenour has changed once more, he’s reverted back to how Mulder met him, weak and pathetic, muttering over and over that he didn’t kill him.

“Duane!” Mulder shouts, getting agitated as the man in the charge quits talking to Skinner and heads towards the door. “Who took you?”

But Duane shakes his head. The window is closing. Mulder will get nothing more today.

He sits back as two guards enter the take Duane away. As Mulder watches them leave, he meets eyes with Skinner and the other man shakes his head. It’s over for today.

Mulder stands and stalks past Skinner, frustrated and angry once more at the lack of progress and storms down the corridor.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The chatter and commotion outside quiets as Skinner closes his office door. A cigarette is stumped out in a silver ashtray, smoke still emanating from it, the smoker not long gone. Skinner disposes it in the trashcan beneath his desk. He’s only just sat down when Mulder barges into the room, unwelcome and unannounced.

“I want access to the body.”

Skinner’s used to it. The demanding for things Mulder is in no position to be demanding. The impromptu entrance. It’s the collateral damage that is expected when he asks for Mulder’s help.

“What for?” Skinner asks. It was a futile task. Truths that are meant to say buried, never to be unearthed. Duane Barry killed that man, that is the truth. Nobody came for them.

“Barry said he didn’t murder him,” says Mulder. “I want to see if he’s telling the truth.”

A futile task.

“What does it matter?”

One that Mulder is beyond seeing.

“You asked me on this case sir,” Mulder says, the hint of surprise in his voice.

Perhaps it’s Mulder inability to be deterred that will help them.

The file sits on his desk, Skinner looks at that rather than Mulder.

“Go to the morgue,” Skinner says slowly. “When you get there, ask for a Dr Scully.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Three tables. Two either side empty. The middle one lies a body. A man.

Morgues were never Mulder’s favourite places; he prefers live patients to dead ones. Morgues gave him an unsettling feeling.

The body draws him in. A Y incision starting from his collarbones, disappearing beneath a sheet. This man has already been autopsied.

“Can I help you?”

A woman’s voice.

Mulder jumps and spins, bumping into a tray table and knocking the contents off onto the floor. The woman, red-haired and small, looks disdainfully at the floor then at Mulder.

“I’m sorry,” says Mulder, insincerely. “I’m, er…I’m looking for Dr Scully.”

A smile.

“That’s me.”

Shocked. Another smile. She walks over to the instruments on the floor.

“Well,” he extends his hand towards the floor. “I’m Mulder, I’m—”

She looks at him. A knowing look.

“I know who you are. You’re a psychologist.”

Blinks.

“…yes.”

She takes the tools to the sink.

“Why are you here?”

“There’s a body I want to see.”

“You’re seeing one right now.”

Mulder looks at the body on the table.

“N-no, not that body. I was…” He frowns. “Are you busy?”

Scully kicks the wheels, releasing the brakes. “Not right. I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Right, uh…”

Mulder doesn’t like morgues.

It’s a game. She smiles again.

“So you want to see a body?” she asks, rolling the table towards the back doors.

“Yes.” He follows behind her. “I was told to come to you. The body I want to see is Derek Barney.”

Scully disappears through the doors. Mulder hangs back. He saw the bodies and that is not a place he wants to visit.

She re-enters.

“I hope you’re better with graveyards than you are morgues.”

.:.:.:.:.:.

An unmarked grave.

“Disturbing the dead, Mr Mulder. His spirit could haunt you.”

Mulder smiles. He likes her.

“Well, it will have to join the list.”

Two men bring out the coffin.

“You have many spirits that haunt you, then?” Scully asks.

A look to the distance. Long and hard.

“…Yes.”

“Where are we taking it?” one of the men asks. Directed at Mulder.

Um…

“The morgue,” says Scully. It’s the first time the men notice she’s standing there.

“Sir?” the man asks Mulder.

“The morgue.”

The man nods, gesturing to his colleague.

“Maybe I’m the ghost,” says Scully.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Scoop marks. Did she know?

“Did you document these?” he asks.

Scully sits at a desk, allowing Mulder to do what he needs to do.

“Yes.”

“And?”

Bewildered.

“They’re marks. Caused by Duane Barry.”

Right.

“And the marks on his cheeks?”

Calm and cool.

“Caused by Duane Barry.”

A smirk across Mulder’s face.

“So all the things about talking to the dead, spirits haunting you when you disturb them…”

Scully places the pen down.

“I think you take the _alien_ in your profession too seriously.”

Mulder knows he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s not a secret after all.

“I told you I knew who you were.”

Mulder nods.

“So you think Duane Barry did this?”

A body rotting away.

She stands up from her chair and walks to the table.

“You believe it was something else.”

“I know it was something else.”

A pause. They stare at each other.

“I just need proof…” Mulder says looking back at the body. He picks up the file, the file Scully wrote herself.

“It’s just hard to do that when everyone else hell-bent on hiding it.”

“But I’m not hiding anything.”

And maybe she isn’t.

Mulder moves closer to her and she reflexively takes a step back.

“Could a man have made those marks, Dr Scully?”

She looks at the marks, rotting away on his stomach.

“Not a man,” she says. “A tool.”

“What kind of tool?”

She looks long and hard at the stomach. Smiles.

“When Barney’s ghosts come to you tonight, why don’t you ask him.”

In the window is a figure. A hand against the glass. Searching. FO—

He looks back at Scully.

“Maybe I will.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Tiny cells. A little girl. His voice. _I know what I saw. I know what I saw._ A body. A little girl. A body rotting. _What does it matter?_ A girl in the graveyard. A girl behind frosted windows. Searching. A scream, shattering the window. Painful screams.

Mulder wakes. The girl is there.

“Hello, Fox.”


	2. Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proceed this fic carefully. Back buttons exist. If you don't like it, just exit out of it. I don't need to be told of your dislike of it. This is a WIP. Kudos and comments are appreciated! If you have any questions you can find me on Tumblr as skumflowerskullz.

Five men. One woman. Sat in a line, the men peer down at Dana.

The smell of smoke fills the air. Dana’s eyes find themselves drawn to the man at the end of the table- the one responsible for the smoke. She can’t explain it, the smoker cares her. Concealed in the shadows, the only thing she can see if the lit end of his cigarette.

The fat middle man speaks.

“Miss Scully.”

Dana bristles but says nothing. She was warned about this after all.

“Will you do it, Miss Scully?”

Dana looks down the line, her eyes landing back on the smoker who’s own cold eyes appear to glow. They tell her she has no choice.

“Yes,” Dana says and when she looks back at the smoker, she falters and gasps quietly as the hurt eyes of Mulder are suddenly staring back at her.

.:.:.:.:.:.

A cold house. A cold house too big for just two. A house meant for children, many of them, to laugh and run and cry about the corridors. Now only their spirits wander about the halls. Empty cots and blood-stained chairs. Choice, Dana thinks. How little has come her way.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

“This is delicious.”

Choice. Dana wants choice. A choice to bare children, a choice to work with patients who are alive, who she can fix and make well, a chance to entertain her brother or not.

A baby laughs. Dana looks at it.

Her eyes relax as flashes of a baby laying on her autopsy table enter her mind.

“I autopsied a baby today.” She digs into her steak.

As expected, there is a stunned silence around the table. The surprise at the normalcy in which Dana can say such unanticipated words then carry on as usual.

What they don’t understand is that you have to. If you don’t you’ll cry and scream at the injustice of it all, that someone who had the choice to bare children suffocated their baby with a pillow while her body fails to bring a child to full development. Dana cried at her first baby, hands shaking as she held the scalpel over its chest as foetuses and half-developed babies she was never able to grow come to her mind. Her supervisor called it Woman’s Hysteria and she would lose her job if it ever happened again.

One forgets that dissociated sentences like these aren’t normal outside of reports and morgues.

“Perhaps we should find you another job,” says Bill Jr.

Dana smiles like the dumb little flower she pretends to be. Ethan nervously laughs at it all but there is fire in his eyes when he looks at Dana.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Fire. Burning.

Pain isn’t a choice but causing one’s pain is. She burnt herself with a teaspoon once because it was her choice to.

Choice.

.:.:.:.:.:.

Mulder’s office. A choice to knock on the door. Down in the basement, rats for company. There’s a different breed of Rat upstairs, too.

“Dr Scully.”

Mulder. His face falls.

“What happened?” He’s in her space at an alarming rate, hands itching to touch her chin.

A split lip.

Dana looks at his hands. Touch it, she thinks. Touch me.

“Mr Mulder,” she says with a smile. A smile that hurts as the cut on her lip stretches but she’s expected to smile.

“I’ve been sent to spy on you.”

Choice.

He isn’t prepared for it. He stutters and blinks a few times.

“Well…erm…Thank you for telling me, I suppose.”

She stands outside his door. The basement. Rats for company.

He’s inside, writing away. She knocks.

“Mr Mulder,” she says.

“Dr Scully.” There’s a glance down at her split lip but he doesn’t say anything. “What can I do for you?”

“Any look on finding your aliens?” She enters the office. It’s cold and damp, the faint smell of mould. Smells like the dead. Did you choose this office, Mulder?

Mulder huffs. “I’ve been denied further access to Duane Barry.”

He sits back down in his chair. She takes the one opposite it.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

It’s sincere.

“Someone doesn’t want me poking around.” He looks at her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”

She should have been in a theatre company.

“I’m just the pathologist,” she says while fiddling with some papers on his desk.

“Well,” says Mulder. “I’ve been thinking, since you’ve been the most helpful person I’ve met on this damn case so far. How would you feel about joining me?”

She laughs. “You want me to help you look for aliens?”

“It’s not always aliens. Just…unexplained phenomena.”

She smiles even though it hurts. She smiles because she doesn’t have a choice.

“I’d love to.”


	3. Why Children?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I randomly got inspiration for this so here you go. Feel free to message me on Tumblr: @queequegwrites

“I want access to Duane Barry!”

Skinner’s head lifts to the door, an interviewee spins in his chair.

An interview is taking place. An interview Mulder has seemed to have interrupted.

But Mulder does not care. He challenges Skinner, silently demanding his access to the man be granted.

“Excuse us,” Skinner says to his interviewee. A hand his placed on Mulder’s arm, forcefully leading him out of the office.

“Why have I been denied access to Duane Barry?” Mulder asks.

Skinner shakes his head. “An order was sent down from the top,” the other man says. “It was out of my control.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Mulder blazes. “I was just meant to find out when I got there.” His voice rises, catching the attention of a few other detectives close by.

Skinner quietens his voice when he speaks.

“I intended on telling you earlier but then I got stuck with this.” He gestures towards his office to where the interviewee sits inside.

Mulder looks that way, seeming to understand that Skinner wasn’t the one to be angry with here and nods.

“Is there anything you can do about it?” He asks. “You asked me on this case, after all.”

Skinner shakes his head.

“I heard they wanted to keep this to police business.”

Police business, Mulder thinks. Keep it to police business so they can wrap it up and chuck it away.

Skinner sighs and Mulder knows his time is up yet before they go their separate ways, Skinner calls to him.

“I’ll see if I can fix this, Mulder.”

Mulder nods, though he doesn’t get his hopes up.

.:.:.:.:.:.

A body beneath the sheets. Medical instruments perfectly laid out in a line on a tray. Mulder eyes the knife-looking one, picks it up, plays with it, cuts his finger, and drops it onto the floor in response.

He sucks his finger into his mouth.

What made him come here, he is unsure.

“Do you not have work to do, Mr Mulder?” She’s asking upon seeing him sitting there.

As she nears, he notices the cut she was sporting on her lip a few days ago has all but healed. She smiles at him and it doesn’t look like it hurts to smile anymore.

“That would depend upon your definition of what my work is,” he says. “I’ve been denied access to Duane Barry so I can’t do that.” One of her eyebrows quirks up in question but he doesn’t answer it. “If you mean my other work…Yes, I love walking around a mental institution stopping little children from bashing their heads against a wall because Mommy dearest didn’t tell them they loved them when they went to bed every night.”

It’s cynical to say that of a place he should be proud of. He helps children get better, bloom into functioning adults who learned how to hide their flaws. Yes, he should be very proud of himself.

It’s the anger, he tells himself. He’s just angry.

Scully doesn’t comment on his little outburst, she just looks down towards his finger that was still in pain and now aching.

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

Yes, he is, thank you for noticing.

Mulder holds his bloodied and dripping finger up.

“Do you have anything?” he asks.

Scully spies the cause of his wound on the floor.

After picking it up, she walks to a cupboard taking out some pieces of cloth. She returns, reaching for his hand and bringing it towards her.

“Did your mother never tell you not to play with sharp objects?” she asks as she applies pressure to the wound.

Mulder watches his finger.

“My mother never told me she loved me,” he answers with too much blasé. “I might have been referencing myself earlier on.”

A flit of a smile appears across her face. She moves onto wrapping his finger up.

“You are very strange, Mr Mulder.”

Mulder smiles, looking up at her as she finally ties the cloth securely around his finger. He likes her. He likes her a lot.

“Can I take you to lunch, Dr Scully?”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

She’s dressed in black even on such a hot day as this, like she’s always in mourning.

And Mulder supposes somebody who cuts into people for a living would be.

Her auburn hair is tied back into a bun, a hat sits nicely atop her head. She sits with her back up straight, eats daintily from the food on her plate, acts very much like a woman of high standing.

Acts.

Mulder knows that’s not the case.

Middle class is too high for her. Slums? No, that was too low. Slightly higher up. If she ran around bare foot it was of her own choosing.

Her grandfather was Irish, maybe even her father if her accent was anything to go by but she was very much born in New York. Not the city, outside of it. The smaller towns. With guidance, she was killing chickens at the ripe age of seven. By nine she was Chief Chicken Killer, ringing their necks and cutting them up herself. Later, she would do this for a living- the cutting at least. To feed her family. To help serve justice. All for the greater good.

And she’s beaten at home for it.

Mulder didn’t need a gift to know that.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m not doing anything,” he answers calmly with a sip of his tea.

“Stop it,” she demands.

“Stop what?” he asks.

A sigh.

“Ask me.”

He is confused.

“Ask you?”

“Ask me the question you’ve been dying to ask me.”

She’s lost him.

“I don’t know what that question is,” he says placing down his tea. Truly.

Another sigh. She looks out of the window. If it were dark, she would see her own reflection. She frowns, a shadow passing across her face.

“You pity me,” she says.

“I certainly do not,” Mulder says with a shake of his head. “You are more than capable.”

She looks at him, trying to suss him out.

“So why did you ask me for lunch?”

He shrugs.

“I think you’re an interesting person.”

“You don’t know me.”

Mulder grins.

“Let’s see…You’re name is Dana Katherine Scully. You trained as a doctor and you are a pathologist for the New York City Police Department. You talk to dead bodies like they’re still alive and then proceed to cut into them. I would say that makes you interesting.”

That eyebrow rises again. This time, curious.

“Is that all?” she asks as if she’s waiting for something else.

“What do you mean?”

She laughs as if he’s playing, quietly, so people don’t hear her.

“You’re not as unknown as you think you are, Mr Mulder.”

Mulder swallows, feeling nervous.

.:.:.:.:.:.

This part of ‘lunch’ was completely spontaneous.

Neither of them have any important matters to attend to and besides, Mulder was enjoying her company.

It turns out she isn’t so unknown either. People seem to look at them as they walk through the street, gawking and muttering to whoever is closest to them. Gossiping, Mulder remembers it’s called. He wants to get inside their heads, find out what’s so interesting about the pair.

Scully walks with her head held high, uncaring for the stares, it’s almost like she doesn’t notice them.

They catch a cab the rest of the way, shielding them from any more whispers or stares.

Mulder keeps their destination a secret for reasons unknown to even himself until the tall, iron gates appear before them, words written: Golden Heights Psychiatric Hospital for Children.

“Your asylum?” Scully asks, both intrigued and confused as to why she’s been brought here.

“The best children’s asylum in the country, I’ve heard.”

It earns him a smile from her and he helps her from the carriage.

“So why have you brought me here?” Scully asks as Mulder unlocks the gate.

“I don’t really know myself.” The gate unlocks and he allows her to enter first, holding it open so she can walk through, closing and locking it behind him. “It’s been a while. I wanted to check if things were still running smoothly.”

Scully nods and they make their way up the path towards the hospital. Four storeys tall it stands. It was wide, too, the end unseeable from their vantage point currently.

It was one of the biggest hospitals in the city, a house that once belonged to some fancy man who’s name Mulder doesn’t care to remember. It’s his now. For better or for worse.

As they near the building, it’s residents begin to appear. All children as the establishment would suggest, all of different ages. Mulder takes in children from the ages of five to seventeen. They leave, soon after they turn eighteen and rarely does Mulder ever hear from them again.

They play. Running around after a ball, playing with skipping ropes or hopscotch. They look normal. Mulder wants them to feel normal.

“Live patients,” Scully is saying, looking at the children as they pass.

“Makes a change to dead ones?”

She looks at him.

“You can’t cut their brains open and peer inside.”

Mulder shakes his head. “No, you cannot.”

He spies a staff member exiting out into the yard. He can get what he came for and they can go again.

“Excuse me,” he says to Scully and wanders over to his employee.

Dana is left in the yard. She glances around at all the children who play, unsure what to do with herself.

As her eyes scan the area, she sees a little girl about seven sat on her own. She’s playing with something, a boardgame maybe.

“Hello,” Dana says to the girl. Why she wandered over to this one, she’s not sure. There was something about her, her short strawberry blonde hair or the way she sat alone, playing by herself whilst the other children played with each other.

“I’m Dana,” Dana continues. “What are you playing?” She wonders around to stand in front of the girl.

Before her is a checkerboard. The little girl moves a red piece, there’s nobody around to move the black.

Dana finds herself kneeling before the girl.

“Do you need someone to play with?” she asks.

The girl shakes her head. “I have someone to play with,” she proclaims.

“Who?”

The little girl’s eyes move towards an empty space next to Dana, before moving back to lock onto Dana again.

“Elizabeth,” says the girl.

Dana smiles. “Do you play with Elizabeth a lot?”

But the little girl is frowning.

“She doesn’t like it when you say her name.”

An uneasiness overcomes Dana, her smile falters, and she shifts her legs beneath her.

“Right. Sorry.” The smile is back. “Do you and your friend play together often?”

But the girl isn’t listening. She’s looking to where ‘Elizabeth’ is sitting, her face looking conflicted.

Wanting to help the child, Dana asks, “What’s wrong?”

The girl swallows and licks her lips, her eyes drifting over to Dana’s.

“Elizabeth said I have to hurt you.”

Dana’s blood goes cold.

.:.:.:.:.:.

A few patients causing trouble here and there but, for the most part, the hospital was functioning well.

Mulder thanks the staff member and his eyes drift over to where he left Scully. She’s gone from the place they were standing but not too far. He finds her sitting on the grass, talking to a girl.

His blood goes cold when he realises who that girl is.

Keeping his cool, Mulder strides towards them, his stomach coiling and heart beating fast.

He reaches the pair in no time, just in time, a gently taps the small girl on her shoulder.

“Emily,” Mulder says and the girl turns towards him. “I think it’s time you should go in now.”

Emily nods, picking up her checkerboard. She’s about to run inside when Mulder stops her.

“Take Elizabeth with you.”

“Come on, Elizabeth,” says Emily before disappearing off.

Mulder looks to Scully still sitting on the ground, looking shaken. He holds out his hand, helping her up.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She smooths the grass stains from her skirt.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”

Mulder shakes his head. “No, Emily is very deceiving.”

He guides them over to a nearby bench and they sit, watching the other children play.

“Before Emily was brought here,” Mulder begins. “She had been found as the only surviving member of her family. They had all been killed except her.” He hears Scully suck in a breath. “They never told me the specifics but when Emily was asked to tell the police what had happened, she told them that her friend Elizabeth had killed them all.” He glances a look at Scully, she’s listening intently, her fingers laced together and fidgeting. “It was realised quickly that ‘Elizabeth’ didn’t exist. Emily had killed them. And so Emily was brought to me.”

There’s no sound from Scully and Mulder has to physically check she is still there.

“How…” Scully starts. “How old was she?”

“She was five.”

A breath is released. “Poor girl,” says Scully.

It surprised Mulder but perhaps it shouldn’t have.

“You’re the first to have that reaction.” He reaches over and squeezes her hand before looking back out to the yard. “Not all the children are like Emily. Most are brought to me because they have behavioural problems or they begin acting out sexual tendencies too early. Some cry too often or don’t cry at all. It depends on the parent.” He looks back at her to find she’s still listening. He shrugs. “Not every child is an Emily yet some people seem to think they are.”

Sometimes it made Mulder sad to think of all the children who had been brought to him, that if they just had different parents, they wouldn’t be in this situation.

“Why children?” Scully is asking. “Why do you specialise in children?”

He smiles. “For the same reason I believe in aliens and UFOs.”

Scully, rightly, is confused.

But that was a story for another time.

Mulder stands, holding out his hand again.

“Let me take you home,” he says and Scully is reaching for his hand immediately.

“Please.”

Together, they walk back towards the gate, as the whistle sounds, and all the children run back inside.


End file.
